SoH, chapter 5 - betaed
this is the newly-betaed version of chapter 5! huge thanks goes to Black Wings for volunteering to do this.
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Chapter 5 - Welcome to Allteline
At their first sight of the school, the students were overwhelmed. The nerves that they had felt getting stronger throughout their day of travel had finally reached a high point.
When the vehicles they were riding in reached the gates to the school grounds, the students could make out the details of the school building. It did look quite like Hogwarts, in the sense that it was a castle, but it did not look anywhere near as old, or ornate, as what they were used to. The stone looked almost new because it was a very bright white color. There were four main towers at the four corners of the building and a few scattered in other places. On one side of the school, towards the back of the grounds, they saw what they were sure were Quidditch goalposts. There were also a lot of trees around the school, but nothing like the forest at Hogwarts. The gates opened and the cars continued up the long roadway until they arrived in front of the main entrance to the school.
They rolled to a stop, and the students were just moving to open their car doors when the doors to the school banged open. A tall, smiling man walked outside and stood at the top of the steps that lead up to the doors.
The man looked to be about 40 and had dark brown hair. He was wearing a brightly colored Hawaiian style shirt and khaki shorts with sandals. The deep tan he had made him look even more like he had just gotten back from a vacation on some exotic island. When he spotted the cars, he waved enthusiastically and started down the steps in their direction.
He approached the first of the two cars, and opened the door that Hermione had been about to open before the man had made his appearance.
"Hello, everyone. I'm Randwin Napaliebalous, headmaster of this little learning institution, and soon to be one of your new best friends... I hope," he started, still with an abnormally large grin plastered on his face. "I trust you all had an enjoyable trip?" Everyone nodded in confirmation. "Wonderful. It's great to finally get to meet you guys. I've heard a lot about all of you from Dumbledore. Well, there will be more time for introductions later on. Why don't we get all your things in the building and have you sorted so you can put everything away? Chris can give you the official tour of the school afterwards, and you can have a little bit of time to look around on your own and get to know the place before the rest of the students arrive later this evening. Sound good?" There was a murmur of consent from the students. "Awesome, let's go!" With that, the head of Allteline moved from in front of the door and stepped to the back of the car to help the students gather their things from the trunk.
After all the students had their luggage with them, Professor Napaliebalous took them in through the front doors. For ten minutes he guided them down halls and past doors, occasionally throwing out random bits of information about the school and answering all of Hermione’s questions. The end of their journey came when he led them into what Harry assumed was his office.
As the group entered the room, Harry noticed that there were already four people sitting in there, apparently awaiting their arrival. Three of them were female, the last was male.
“Hey, good to see you guys again,” said Napaliebalous to the room’s native inhabitants. He then turned to the Hogwarts group and said, “Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to our four Heads of House here at Allteline. This is Mrs. Gorman, Head of Orion. She teaches Potions. Next to her is Mrs. Spenace, Head of Indus. She teaches Transfiguration. That’s Miss Truehardt, Head of Auriga, and Deputy Headmistress. She teaches History. And last but not least, Mr. McVickerson, Head of Cassipoeia. Poor guy, there aren’t that many male teachers here. He has to put up with a lot of women a lot of the time, especially during meetings. The only chance he really has to get away is when he’s teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. After you are sorted into your new houses, you’ll get to know your own Head better.” All the teachers had smiled and waved, or shown some kind of greeting, when they were introduced. “Ok, that’s done. How about going around the group and introducing yourselves?” Napaliebalous said to the students.
As always, Hermione was delighted to start. “My name is Hermione Granger. I’m in Gryfindor house at Hogwarts, and proud to say that I’m at the top of my class.” She then moved forward to shake the hands of her new teachers.
“I’m Harry Potter. I’m also in Gryffindor, but I have no idea where I am in relation to the other students.”
“Ron Weasley, Gryffindor.”
“Susan Bones, Hufflepuff.”
“Justin Finch-Fletchley, Hufflepuff.”
“Mandy Brocklehurst, Ravenclaw.”
“Anthony Goldstein, Ravenclaw.”
“Draco Malfoy, Slytherin.”
Once everyone was done with introductions, Napaliebalous continued. “Great. Now, why don’t we get started with that sorting?”
Headmaster Napaliebalous then went over to his desk and pulled out a large wooden box. He flipped the lid open to reveal that it was filled with plain white candles.
“Ok. Now to begin the ceremony. When I call you up here I want you to think about the things that matter most to you. That will help the candle decide what house you belong in. Once the candle is lit it will take only a few seconds to spark. This color represents the house color. Just so you remember the house colors are Maroon for Orion, blue for Cassiopeia, purple for Indus, and green for Auriga. We will be going in alphabetical order, so the first person up will be Susan Bones.” Napaliebalous said.
Susan looked a bit nervous as she came up to the front of the room. Napaliebalous handed her a white candle and another candle that had already been lit. Susan touched the lit candle to her white one and the wick quickly caught fire. It burned normally for a few seconds before beginning to shoot large blue sparks. The sparks startled all the students, but the teachers were not fazed.
“Cassiopeia!” Napaliebalous shouted. Susan seemed relieved that the sorting ceremony was over for her and she went over to Mr. McVickerson, who seemed excited that she would be joining his house.
Next up was Justin. He walked over to stand in front of Napaliebalous’ desk. Napaliebalous handed Justin a plain white candle and the already lit candle that Susan had already used. Justin held the white candle in one hand and brought the other up to touch the wicks together. Just as Susan’s had done before his, Justin’s candle burned normally for a moment. Then, it erupted into bright blue sparks.
“Wonderful! Looks like you’ll be joining Susan in Cassiopeia with Mr. McVickerson. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Justin said as he walked over to stand behind Susan.
Anthony was called forward after Justin. He was sorted into Auriga, followed quickly by Mandy. After Mandy was done, Hermione was sorted into Orion, Malfoy into Indus, and Harry and Ron into Orion. When the sorting was completed, Napaliebalous spoke again.
“Well, that seems to be in order. I'll let you all get aquainted with your new heads of house. They will now show you to your rooms. Then, you can all go around and explore the castle. If you don't feel like exploring, you can either stay in your room, or go to the dining hall to wait for lunch to be served, which is at noon. I, personally, think it would be boring just sitting there for hours. Any questions?”
Hermione's hand shot up.
“Oh, no. Not already,” groaned Ron.
“Quiet, you,” said Hermione while glaring at Ron. She then turned around and smiled sweetly. “Mr. Napaliebalous, Sir, where can I find the library?”
“Up the main staircase and directly across the hall. The doors should be open any time you wish to use the facilities, unless the librarian suddenly decides to go on a three-week vacation without telling anyone like she did last year. Took us a week and a half to figure out how to unlock the crazy thing. Anyway, moving on. Any more questions?”
Nobody moved.
“Ok, then, everyone out. I have a nap to take before the rest of the student body decides to show up.”
The teachers led all of their new students out of the principal’s office. Mrs. Gorman and Miss Truehardt lead their students out the door and down the hall to the right, going in opposite directions at the end of the hall. Mrs. Spenace and Mr. McVickerson did the same thing, but to the left.
As the Gryffindor-turned-Orion students were walking though the halls to the Orion dorms, they noticed that it was not quite as difficult to remember the way as it was at Hogwarts. There were not as many twists and turns in the corridors at Allteline. They also noticed that the artwork on the walls did not look professional. Upon closer inspection they figured out that it was, in fact, all done by students (past and present) that had attended the school. There were painting, drawings, photographs, and even a few sculptures here and there. One sculpture that they found particularly interesting was a wire frog. Every few seconds his tongue would flick out of his mouth and catch a fly.
Before they could enjoy much more of the artwork, though, Mrs. Gorman informed them that they had arrived at the entrance to Orion’s common room. The entrance was a very ornately carved wooden door, with pieces of maroon stained glass at random intervals in the design. In the middle of the door was a large brass knocker.
“To get into the common room, you have to knock the appropriate number of times. If you knock the wrong number of times, the door will lock, and no one will be able to get in or out, for ten minutes. The number changes every week, so it’s more difficult for students from other houses to get in. Not that that would happen in the first place,” Mrs. Gorman said with a pointed look at her three newest students.
“Oh, no, of course not,” said Hermione.
Mrs. Gorman nodded her head at Hermione, then turned to the door and knocked seven times. The door swung open and the group went inside. Mrs. Gorman then explained to them that they had to be in the common room by ten o’clock every night, boys dorms were through the door on the right side of the fireplace, girls dorms were through the door on the left side of the fireplace, and bathrooms were across the hall from the dorms.
“Well, I guess you guys are free to roam now. If you decide to go outside, make sure you don’t leave the school grounds. It you have any questions you can come find me in my office; there are maps on the walls around the school so you’ll be able to find it, or you can ask one of the other teachers. Have fun!” With that, the Head of Orion disappeared from the room, leaving the students to entertain themselves.
“So, what should we do now?” asked Harry.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m headed to th-”
“The library, we know.” Ron said. Hermione sniffed, turned on her heel, and left the room without another word to her two best friends.
“Come on Harry, let’s go look around, get used to this place.”
“Alright.”
Harry and Ron spent the next few hours wandering the halls of their home for the coming school year. They walked through all the floors and looked in all the classrooms. They even managed to make their way to the library to inform Hermione that they were on their way to the dining hall, as lunch would be served in ten minutes. Hermione waved in their direction, letting them know that she would be along in a few minutes.
As the two boys left the library and started down the main staircase, they met up with Susan and Justin.
“So, what do you guys think of this place so far?” Harry asked.
“I think it’s great,” Justin replied. “Did you see that they’ve even got electricity? It’s a magical form, of course, but it's great. Susan and I ran into some of the regular students here when we where in our dorm. One of them even said that they had a TV in there.”
“TV? Surely you don’t think you’ll have any spare time to be watching anything? I’ve just been to the library here, and there are so many things to study. I don’t think I’ll have time for spare time. The rest of you should check it out. I’m sure you’ll agree.” Hermione had caught up with the group just before they entered the dining hall.
“Hermione, why would we-” Ron stopped mid-sentence as he looked into the dining hall after the doors had open. “Well, this is certainly different.”
Instead of there being four long house tables, there were many smaller tables that were set in house sections. The color of the tablecloths on the tables determined what house the section belonged to. Each section had about eight tables.
“Ah, children, welcome!” Napaliebalous greeted the students as they walked in. “Please find a seat. As you can tell, each house has its own section, but you don’t actually have to sit there if you really don’t feel like it.”
Harry, Hermione, and Ron all headed for the Orion tables. The other students began to head for their own tables, but realizing that there would be two per table, decided to follow the trio to the Orion table.
Draco walked in a few moments later. He hadn't heard what Napaliebalous had said, but he was able to figure out the layout of the dining hall. Looking to his left, he noticed all the Hogwarts students were sitting at the Orion table. At first he was going to ignore them and sit at the Indus table, but he realized he didn't want to sit alone. So, going against his best interests, Draco made his way over to the Orion table and sat down next to Anthony Goldstein. The entire table stared at Draco for a minute before he said anything.
“What are you all staring at? You're all sitting together; you really didn't expect me to sit by myself, did you?” The rest of the table remained silent. Ron was about to answer Draco when the table was suddenly filled with food. Draco was instantly forgotten. The food was a little different than what was normally served at Hogwarts, but all of it was good, and there was definitely just as much, if not more.
The kids had a great time sampling all the new things they found. Ron seemed to like everything. Even Draco found that he was enjoying himself, though he tried to hide it by not talking to anyone.
Eventually everyone had eaten their fill and left the dining hall. Outside the hall, the students went their separate ways, with Hermione heading straight toward the library again. Harry and Ron decided they wanted to wander some more and explore the rest of the school. Since they hadn't yet visited the dungeons, they chose that as their next destination.
As soon as they stepped down into the dungeon, they could tell that it was very different from Hogwarts. The most obvious difference was that it was quite warm, and very well lit. It was almost like the second floor of the castle, but under the first floor instead of above. The boys also agreed that it just felt like a friendlier place.
"And you know that we're not going to have problems with the potions teacher here, we've already met her. She seems like a nice person," said Ron as they finally found the door that led to the potions classroom after a few hours of aimless wandering through the dungeons. "I think this may be our best school year yet."
"You know, I think you may be right. Most of the teachers here seem pretty nice. Especially the ones we've met already."
***
"Looks like we've made our way through the whole dungeon," Harry said when they stepped back out of the classroom. "What time is it?"
"Um, I think around four," answered Ron.
"OK. We've still got a while before we have to be back for the sorting. What should we do now?"
"We could go look around outside. We haven't done that yet."
"That sounds good."
After the two agreed on what to do next, they walked back upstairs. They started heading for the doors when they got to the Entrance Hall, but stopped a few feet short when someone exploded in from the other side. It turned out to be a sopping wet blonde girl, who looked to be about the same age as them. And she looked extraordinarily upset.
"Grace Sadler, get back here so I can beat you in the head with a blunt object!" she yelled.
Harry and Ron then heard, "Bring it on, biznitch!" from somewhere near the top of the staircase. They turned just in time to see another girl, again about the same age, but with red hair, run around the corner and out of sight. Harry and Ron turned back to look at the blonde girl again, but she was already running up the stairs, chasing the red-haired girl.
The boys looked at each other with confused expressions on their faces before the doors opened again. This time, two boys entered. They both had matching light brown hair and blue eyes. There was no way they couldn't be twins. They were quickly followed by another who had brown eyes and dark brown hair that was spiked and tipped neon orange.
After another moment of hysterical laughter, one of the twins stopped long enough to ask, "Did you see a red head and an angry, wet blonde come in here?"
Harry answered first. "Yeah, the angry, wet blonde chased the red head up the stairs."
"Perfect!" said the other twin. "Thanks."
The three new boys walked away from Harry and Ron and toward the stairs. As they were leaving, Harry and Ron heard their conversation.
"Grace really does know how to start a new school year the right way. She hasn't failed to make us laugh yet."
"Yeah, but it's too bad that Nicole is usually the one on the receiving end of her antics. It puts her in a bad mood. Hopefully she doesn't turn violent this time. Last year was scary."
All of the boys shivered in remembrance.
"Poor door, never had a chance. Oh well, let's go see if she's locked Grace in a closet yet."
The boys had finally made it to the top of the stairs and disappeared behind the same corner as the girls had.
"OK, that was interesting," commented Ron after a minute of silence. "An angry, wet blonde did just chase a red head in here, threatening to cause her serious harm, and three guys did just come through here basically cheering her on, right?"
"Yep, that's about what I got out of it," Harry responded.
"Right, I think it's safe to say that this school is a little bit strange."
"Probably."
"Let's go outside now."
"Good idea."
The boys then continued out of the school and onto the grounds, trying not to think too much about the strange scene they had just encountered. While they were outside they looked over just about everything, paying special attention to the area devoted to Quidditch. They also found the place where students were being dropped off and watched that for a while. When more and more students started showing up faster, they decided it would probably be a good time to go inside and get ready for dinner.
They were just starting to walk to the Dining Hall when they saw the rest of the Hogwarts students come out of it. Hermione and the others spotted Harry and Ron and motioned for them to go over to her. They did so.
"There you are!" said Hermione. "We have a meeting to be to in five minutes! Why weren't you in here sooner?"
"Uh, we didn't know we had to be at a meeting?" Ron answered uncertainly. He didn't want to say something wrong and make Hermione any more flustered than she already was.
"Anyway, we do need to be there in five minutes, so let's go." Hermione then led the Hogwarts group to the classroom that had been specified. She opened the door and let everyone in, then followed the last person.
"Oh, you're here. Good to see you again," said Mrs. Gorman. "I'm glad you all showed up on such short notice. Sorry about that, by the way. We just thought to have this meeting about an hour ago," she explained.
"That's perfectly alright," said Hermione.
"Great," said Mrs. Gorman happily. "Now, we're just waiting for one more person to show up." This time they could hear the tiniest bit of annoyance in her voice.
Suddenly, the door swung open and in walked the last member of their congregation. Harry and Ron immediately recognized her as the red-head being chased by the angry, wet blonde from earlier.
"Miss Sadler, so glad you could make it," greeted Mrs. Gorman.
"Sorry I'm late, I was locked in a closet for two hours."
"Ah, the work of Nicole Newman, no doubt. What happened this year, feathers?"
"Nope, something completely new. Want to hear about it?"
"Maybe later. Right now we have to get through this meeting so we can get to the
Dining Hall before the sorting begins.
"As all of our students have already been informed, Allteline School of Sorcerery will be host to exchange students from Hogwarts for the first half of the school year. This meeting was called to introduce our sixth year head students to the exchange students, since these are the people you will probably be spending the most time with. I expect my students to help introduce you to others, and make your stay here as comfortable as possible," she ended, turning her glance to the Hogwarts students.
Just then, everyone in the room heard a rather loud thud, then a grumbled, "Ow! Stupid door... monkey... handle..." come from the other side of the door. All of the Allteline students laughed when they heard the voice. Mrs. Gorman sighed.
"Miss Newman?"
The grumbling suddenly stopped. "Yes?" came from the other side of the door. This seemed to amuse the Allteline students even more.
"If you would like, you can come in rather than try to listen through the door."
"Okay."
The door opened, and in walked a blonde girl, whom Harry and Ron also recognized from the earlier scene in the Entrance Hall. She came fully into the room and walked over to stand next to Grace.
"I should have known I wouldn't be able to separate you two. I'm surprised you've been able to function properly without the other by your side for the last ten minutes.
"Anyway, we've only got a few more minutes before the sorting begins, so I'll just go around the room, point to people, and give their names. Starting with our guests; this is Hermione Granger, Susan Bones, Anthony Goldstien, Harry Potter, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Ron Weasley, Mandy Brocklehurst, and Draco Malfoy.
"And our students are Grace Sadler, Jimmie MacMary, and Nicole Newman, who isn't actually a head, but seems to show up wherever Grace does, from Orion, Matild Hendrick and John Hudson from Cassiopeia, Bridget Downey and Tony Kishida from Auriga, and Tiffany Ploetz and Wesley Regner from Indus.
"OK, now that you all know each other's names, I'm going to ask the Hogwarts students to find the members of the house they've been sorted into. Once you've done that, you can leave and go down to the Dining Hall, but please stay with your house members.
You'll need to sit in your own sections for tonight only."
The students all began moving around the room, looking for the other members of their houses. When most of them had stopped moving, Mrs. Gorman said, "Is everyone ready? OK, let's go." She then led all of them out of the room.
Grace was the one who started the conversation in their newly-formed little group. "Are you the real Harry Potter?" she asked.
"Yes," Harry answered, unsure where this conversation was leading.
"Does that mean that you’re the boy who didn’t die?" She said. Harry was taken back a little by her comment. He wasn’t sure if he had ever been called that before.
"Umm... do you mean the boy who lived?"
"Yeah, same thing." She said.
"Yes, that’s me."
"Fun! Can I touch your scar?"
"Um, OK, I guess."
They all stopped walking so Grace could reach over and touch Harry's forehead.
"Wow, the Harry Potter," she said, sounding awed. "OK, I'm bored now." She suddenly lost interest and turned around, again walking in the direction of the Dining Hall again.
Harry looked at the rest of the group, confused. Ron shrugged at him and they all started walking again.
After a minute of slightly awkward silence between the new aquaintances, Ron started the second conversation of the day.
"Hey, you're not wet anymore," he said while looking at Nicole. Nicole glared at him while Grace and Jimmie started laughing again.
"It's not funny!" Nicole snapped. Grace and Jimmie did stop laughing, but couldn't keep the grins of amusement off their faces.
"What exactly happened to cause you to be wet?" Harry asked, not sure that he wanted to continue on this topic for fear of meeting the same consequence as Grace apparently had.
Grace, on the other hand, seemed to think this topic was perfectly safe and answered immediately, "Invisible water balloons! She literally didn't see what hit her. It was great; you guys should have been there," she said, gesturing to Ron, Harry, and Hermione. Nicole once again glared at Grace, but kept her comments to herself.
The rest of the way to the Dinning Hall, Nicole was silent, while Grace and Jimmie made casual conversation with the new students. Nicole’s attitude changed almost immediately once they reached the Dinning Hall, though. Gone was her angry look, replaced with one of happiness. She waved vigorously at someone across the room and then ran ahead of the group. Grace, leading the group, followed her as they made their way to one of Orion's tables.
Nicole had already sat down, and was deep in conversation with two girls; one with light brown hair, the other with blonde hair. Harry guessed that the two were sisters because they both had the same piercing blue eyes. Nicole looked up from her conversation and motioned all of them to sit down. They did so, with Grace sitting next to Nicole. Grace was drawn into their conversation almost at once, and the trio just sat there and watched the four girls gossip about everything under the sun. Finally, after a few minutes (and Jimmie clearing his throat loudly a few times), the girls realized how rude they had been to their guests.
"Oh, I’m sorry," Nicole said, looking at the three. "Where are my manners? I haven’t introduced you guys to anyone at the table." She began the introductions with the blonde girl sitting next to her. "This is Delana Mayvick, and that is Shana Mayvick," she said pointed to the girl with light brown hair who was sitting next to Hermione. Shana and Delana both said their respective hellos, before Nicole continued with the people sitting on the other end of the table.
"The boy sitting next to Jimmie is Kevin Senser. Oh, just to let you all know, I totally dated him second year," Nicole said with a smile. Harry looked at the boy sitting next to Jimmie. He was the boy with neon orange tipped hair from the Entrance Hall incident.
"And what a mistake it was." He laughed. Nicole gave him a look.
"What! I was a good girlfriend!" She yelled playfully.
"Uh huh." Kevin said sarcastically. So great that you pointed out every guy in the castle to me that you thought had a great butt, and wanted me to think the same thing. I swear for a while you wanted me to be gay." The table erupted with laughter, and Nicole muttered something that nobody could quite hear, but that was probably for the best.
"Anyway, moving along," Nicole said, trying to get the attention away from herself. "Sitting next to Grace are Ryan and Brian Sulok." She said, pointing to the boys that Harry had decided had to be twins earlier.
"As of right now, the one sitting next to Grace is Brian, and the other is RyancI think." She thought about it for a moment, then continued on. "Really, they are almost impossible to tell apart, so don’t worry about calling them the right name. Most people are usually wrong anyway." Both boys nodded in agreement. Nicole suddenly remembered something. "Oh, and just to let you know, Ryan and Brian are not dating, and do not want to date Shana and Delana."
Harry and Ron looked at each other before they both looked to Hermione for the answer. Hermione just shrugged her shoulders and, after a brief pause, spoke up.
"Umm... I don’t mean to sound rude or anything, but why do we need to know this?" she asked.
Nicole seemed confused by Hermione’s question, but suddenly realized her mistake.
"Oh! I forgot to tell you! Shana and Delana are twins, like Ryan and Brian. Most people think that it would be great for two sets of twins to hook up. Sometime I forget that Shana and Delana aren’t identical like Ryan and Brian, so you have to tell people. Sorry for the misunderstanding."
Harry and Ron once again looked at each other. This was definitely going to be an interesting school year. Finally, Nicole got around to introducing the trio.
"And these people," she said, pointing to the three, "are exchange students from Hogwarts, and yes Shana, that does make them British. This is Hermione Granger, Ron Weasly, and Harry Potter."
After his name was said, Harry tensed up a little bit. He expected the table to fall silent and stare at him, like normal, but he was completely surprised when none of that happened. The table went on talking and gossiping, either not knowing, or not caring who he was. For once he was just one of them, just another student.
The table talked amongst itself for another few minutes, until Professor Napaliebalous walked through a side door at the front of the room. Following closely behind him was a bunch of students. All looked a little frightened, and Harry was quite certain that they must be the first years. They all had on the same black robes, which matched the one Harry, and the rest of the students were wearing, except theirs were all missing their house crest.
Napaliebalous walked to the middle of the room, and made a quick speech to start of the sorting ceremony.
"Good evening and welcome back to Allteline. For our first years, hello and welcome. It is wonderful to see all your smiling faces back this year. Before we start the sorting I want to point out that this year we are hosting some students from Hogwarts. I suggest that you all at least meet them during their time here. Well that’s all that I have to say for now, so lets begin the sorting." With that Miss Truehardt got up from the staff table and made her way to the front of the room.
Harry hadn’t noticed that the teachers were sitting at a table at the front of the room, but as Napaliebalous took his seat, he realized that there was not a seat empty. How he was able to miss a table with that amount of people, he did not know.
Miss Truehardt grabbed the box of candles off the floor and placed them on a stool in the front of the room. The ceremony was now ready to begin. She got a list out of her pocket and read off the first name, “Bailey, Dale.”
With that a small boy with short blond hair worked his way out of the group. He took his spot standing next to the box of candles.
Miss Truehardt handed him his unlit candle, then handed him one that was lit. He touched the candles together, and waited a few seconds for it to spark. When it finally did spark green sparks, it made him jump a little bit.
“Auriga,” Miss Truehardt called out. With that a green crest appeared on the boy’s all black robe, and the Auriga tables began to cheer. Dale made his way over to their tables just as Miss Tuehardt called out the next name, “Bracht, Cody.” He went through the sorting process and ended up in Orion. The house cheered with their new addition and he made his way to the table the house had set aside for all the new first years.
After the first few new students had been sorted, Harry started losing interest and got lost in his own thoughts. He was there for a little while, until he heard his name being called quietly.
“Harry?”
“Huh? Oh, Grace, what?”
“Are you excited about the party tonight?” she asked.
“Um, what party?”
Grace stared at him for a second before turning to the rest of the table. “Why didn’t anyone tell them about the party?” she demanded quietly, since the sorting was still going on. Everyone took turns looking at each other, then Kevin spoke.
“Well, wouldn’t that technically be your job? I mean, you are one of the head students who’s supposed to be responsible for introducing them to new people and all that crap.”
“Oh, right, forgot about that,” said Grace. She then turned back to Harry and started speaking to him as though that part of the conversation had not just taken place. “Well, every year on the first night back at school Orion has a huge party. It’s really supposed to be just a little party to help introduce the first years to the older students and give everyone a chance to socialize after being apart for the summer, but that’s never how it ends. Someone usually ends up doing something worthy of being repeated for at least the rest of the week. At one party, I think it was in my third year, one of the seventh years was showing off a spell she had learned over the summer and stuck half the room to the ceiling. I’d never seen Mrs. Gorman that mad before that, and haven’t seen it since. It took until three A.M. to get everyone down. We all got a lovely little chat the next morning about the appropriate application of sticking charms. But that was just a one-time thing,” she added quickly at Harry’s look of horror. “It’s not been that bad since.”
“Oh, ok, I guess that’s a good thing,” Harry replied. “There isn’t a chance of that happening this year, just because we’re here, is there?” Before Grace could answer, the hall broke out in rather loud cheers as a girl, whose name Harry thought was Katie Hall, was sorted into Cassiopeia after standing at the front of the hall for nearly eight full minutes. Her candle was half melted by the time a few blue sparks finally made themselves known.
Grace looked back at Harry and said, “I really don’t think that will happen, but there’s never a definite answer with these people. Most of them are still too afraid of the punishment we almost received after the last incident to try anything like that.”
“What punishment would that have been?” Harry asked curiously.
Grace gave a little shudder before answering, “Confinement to the castle other than Christmas and Easter. Apparently they thought that if we weren’t able to behave inside the school, then there was no way we could outside without adult supervision. I’m glad that never happened. I don’t know what I would have done if I wasn’t able to go shopping every weekend.”
“Well, it’s really not that bad,” said Hermione, who had been listening in to their conversation. “We seem to get along just fine with those conditions.” Grace looked at her in disbelief.
“Yeah, and I bet none of you has ever had to polish an entire trophy room without magic,” added Ron. Nicole looked away and gave a low whistle.
Kevin then decided he wanted to share some of his experiences in detention. “Last year I had to clean the potions room, without magic, after the second years learned how to make color-changing ink. I was multi-colored for two weeks.”
“I think I can outdo you all,” said Harry. “I once had to help Gilderoy Lockhart write his fan mail.”
Everyone at the table immediately agreed with Harry and grimaced at the mere thought of such a horrible punishment, except Shana. “You mean, author of Magical Me, Gilderoy Lockhart? You got to meet him?”
“Yeah,” Harry answered. “He was our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher in second year.”
“Really? That is so not fair. What was he like? I want to know all about him,” Shana said.
Harry and Ron looked at each other, while Hermione started describing their second year, in great detail, to Shana. That was soon drowned out, though, by the cheers of the Indus students as Christine Mahlie joined them.
“So, while they’re all off in their own little world over there,” Jimmie said, indicating Hermione and Shana, “why don’t you two tell us a little bit about yourselves. Let’s start withc what is your ambition in life?” He waited for a few seconds, thoroughly enjoying the looks of bewilderment on Harry’s and Ron’s faces before laughing and saying, “I’m only joking, you don’t have to answer that one. How many brothers and sisters do you guys have?”
Ron answered first. “Six - five older brothers and a younger sister. It gets really annoying sometimes, so don’t start saying anything about how cool it would be to have that many siblings.”
After Harry’s answer, no one had any problems finding anything to talk about during the rest of the sorting and through the feast. Sooner than they had imagined, dinner was over and everyone was heading to their common rooms for the night. When the Orion students got to the door that led to their common room, a seventh year head named Nina Kaiser knocked seven times and she and Scott Haggarty (the other seventh year head) entered, telling everyone to wait just a few minutes while they set up.
When three and a half minutes had passed, the doors opened again and everyone that was still standing out in the hall was invited in. As they crossed the threshold into the room, they saw that it had been decorated maroon, purple, and sky blue tye-dye. There were streamers in those colors, along with posters, tablecloths, and most of the furniture. There was also a disco ball hanging from the middle of the ceiling. On the tables there were refreshments, although they had just eaten. The refreshments were both magical and muggle. There were things like chocolate frogs and butterbeer, along with Coke and Cheetos.
“Dude, these are sweet decorations,” exclaimed Delana.
“I agree,” said Grace.
“Me, too” said Brian.
“Well, it’s nice to know that you’ve deemed it acceptable,” Nina said. “Now we can officially welcome everyone back to school.” With that, music started playing and people started dancing, eating (again), and socializing.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione were the slightest bit uncomfortable at first, but their new friends helped them get past that very quickly. By the end of the night they had met dozens of new people and realized that there were actually some normal people in Orion house. Although the party was still raging at around midnight, Harry, Ron, and Hermione decided to head for their dormitories. They made their way over to the food table where Grace, Nicole, and a few other students were socializing. Once they got closer, they realized that Nicole was actually the one socializing, while Grace seemed to be hoarding bottles of butterbeer and Coke, presumably for a later snack.
They all said good night to one another before the trio made their way to their dorms. Once Harry and Ron were inside they immediately changed into their pajamas and flopped down onto their beds without saying anything to each other. They were exhausted and fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow.
next
previous
Chapter 5 - Welcome to Allteline
At their first sight of the school, the students were overwhelmed. The nerves that they had felt getting stronger throughout their day of travel had finally reached a high point.
When the vehicles they were riding in reached the gates to the school grounds, the students could make out the details of the school building. It did look quite like Hogwarts, in the sense that it was a castle, but it did not look anywhere near as old, or ornate, as what they were used to. The stone looked almost new because it was a very bright white color. There were four main towers at the four corners of the building and a few scattered in other places. On one side of the school, towards the back of the grounds, they saw what they were sure were Quidditch goalposts. There were also a lot of trees around the school, but nothing like the forest at Hogwarts. The gates opened and the cars continued up the long roadway until they arrived in front of the main entrance to the school.
They rolled to a stop, and the students were just moving to open their car doors when the doors to the school banged open. A tall, smiling man walked outside and stood at the top of the steps that lead up to the doors.
The man looked to be about 40 and had dark brown hair. He was wearing a brightly colored Hawaiian style shirt and khaki shorts with sandals. The deep tan he had made him look even more like he had just gotten back from a vacation on some exotic island. When he spotted the cars, he waved enthusiastically and started down the steps in their direction.
He approached the first of the two cars, and opened the door that Hermione had been about to open before the man had made his appearance.
"Hello, everyone. I'm Randwin Napaliebalous, headmaster of this little learning institution, and soon to be one of your new best friends... I hope," he started, still with an abnormally large grin plastered on his face. "I trust you all had an enjoyable trip?" Everyone nodded in confirmation. "Wonderful. It's great to finally get to meet you guys. I've heard a lot about all of you from Dumbledore. Well, there will be more time for introductions later on. Why don't we get all your things in the building and have you sorted so you can put everything away? Chris can give you the official tour of the school afterwards, and you can have a little bit of time to look around on your own and get to know the place before the rest of the students arrive later this evening. Sound good?" There was a murmur of consent from the students. "Awesome, let's go!" With that, the head of Allteline moved from in front of the door and stepped to the back of the car to help the students gather their things from the trunk.
After all the students had their luggage with them, Professor Napaliebalous took them in through the front doors. For ten minutes he guided them down halls and past doors, occasionally throwing out random bits of information about the school and answering all of Hermione’s questions. The end of their journey came when he led them into what Harry assumed was his office.
As the group entered the room, Harry noticed that there were already four people sitting in there, apparently awaiting their arrival. Three of them were female, the last was male.
“Hey, good to see you guys again,” said Napaliebalous to the room’s native inhabitants. He then turned to the Hogwarts group and said, “Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to our four Heads of House here at Allteline. This is Mrs. Gorman, Head of Orion. She teaches Potions. Next to her is Mrs. Spenace, Head of Indus. She teaches Transfiguration. That’s Miss Truehardt, Head of Auriga, and Deputy Headmistress. She teaches History. And last but not least, Mr. McVickerson, Head of Cassipoeia. Poor guy, there aren’t that many male teachers here. He has to put up with a lot of women a lot of the time, especially during meetings. The only chance he really has to get away is when he’s teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. After you are sorted into your new houses, you’ll get to know your own Head better.” All the teachers had smiled and waved, or shown some kind of greeting, when they were introduced. “Ok, that’s done. How about going around the group and introducing yourselves?” Napaliebalous said to the students.
As always, Hermione was delighted to start. “My name is Hermione Granger. I’m in Gryfindor house at Hogwarts, and proud to say that I’m at the top of my class.” She then moved forward to shake the hands of her new teachers.
“I’m Harry Potter. I’m also in Gryffindor, but I have no idea where I am in relation to the other students.”
“Ron Weasley, Gryffindor.”
“Susan Bones, Hufflepuff.”
“Justin Finch-Fletchley, Hufflepuff.”
“Mandy Brocklehurst, Ravenclaw.”
“Anthony Goldstein, Ravenclaw.”
“Draco Malfoy, Slytherin.”
Once everyone was done with introductions, Napaliebalous continued. “Great. Now, why don’t we get started with that sorting?”
Headmaster Napaliebalous then went over to his desk and pulled out a large wooden box. He flipped the lid open to reveal that it was filled with plain white candles.
“Ok. Now to begin the ceremony. When I call you up here I want you to think about the things that matter most to you. That will help the candle decide what house you belong in. Once the candle is lit it will take only a few seconds to spark. This color represents the house color. Just so you remember the house colors are Maroon for Orion, blue for Cassiopeia, purple for Indus, and green for Auriga. We will be going in alphabetical order, so the first person up will be Susan Bones.” Napaliebalous said.
Susan looked a bit nervous as she came up to the front of the room. Napaliebalous handed her a white candle and another candle that had already been lit. Susan touched the lit candle to her white one and the wick quickly caught fire. It burned normally for a few seconds before beginning to shoot large blue sparks. The sparks startled all the students, but the teachers were not fazed.
“Cassiopeia!” Napaliebalous shouted. Susan seemed relieved that the sorting ceremony was over for her and she went over to Mr. McVickerson, who seemed excited that she would be joining his house.
Next up was Justin. He walked over to stand in front of Napaliebalous’ desk. Napaliebalous handed Justin a plain white candle and the already lit candle that Susan had already used. Justin held the white candle in one hand and brought the other up to touch the wicks together. Just as Susan’s had done before his, Justin’s candle burned normally for a moment. Then, it erupted into bright blue sparks.
“Wonderful! Looks like you’ll be joining Susan in Cassiopeia with Mr. McVickerson. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Justin said as he walked over to stand behind Susan.
Anthony was called forward after Justin. He was sorted into Auriga, followed quickly by Mandy. After Mandy was done, Hermione was sorted into Orion, Malfoy into Indus, and Harry and Ron into Orion. When the sorting was completed, Napaliebalous spoke again.
“Well, that seems to be in order. I'll let you all get aquainted with your new heads of house. They will now show you to your rooms. Then, you can all go around and explore the castle. If you don't feel like exploring, you can either stay in your room, or go to the dining hall to wait for lunch to be served, which is at noon. I, personally, think it would be boring just sitting there for hours. Any questions?”
Hermione's hand shot up.
“Oh, no. Not already,” groaned Ron.
“Quiet, you,” said Hermione while glaring at Ron. She then turned around and smiled sweetly. “Mr. Napaliebalous, Sir, where can I find the library?”
“Up the main staircase and directly across the hall. The doors should be open any time you wish to use the facilities, unless the librarian suddenly decides to go on a three-week vacation without telling anyone like she did last year. Took us a week and a half to figure out how to unlock the crazy thing. Anyway, moving on. Any more questions?”
Nobody moved.
“Ok, then, everyone out. I have a nap to take before the rest of the student body decides to show up.”
The teachers led all of their new students out of the principal’s office. Mrs. Gorman and Miss Truehardt lead their students out the door and down the hall to the right, going in opposite directions at the end of the hall. Mrs. Spenace and Mr. McVickerson did the same thing, but to the left.
As the Gryffindor-turned-Orion students were walking though the halls to the Orion dorms, they noticed that it was not quite as difficult to remember the way as it was at Hogwarts. There were not as many twists and turns in the corridors at Allteline. They also noticed that the artwork on the walls did not look professional. Upon closer inspection they figured out that it was, in fact, all done by students (past and present) that had attended the school. There were painting, drawings, photographs, and even a few sculptures here and there. One sculpture that they found particularly interesting was a wire frog. Every few seconds his tongue would flick out of his mouth and catch a fly.
Before they could enjoy much more of the artwork, though, Mrs. Gorman informed them that they had arrived at the entrance to Orion’s common room. The entrance was a very ornately carved wooden door, with pieces of maroon stained glass at random intervals in the design. In the middle of the door was a large brass knocker.
“To get into the common room, you have to knock the appropriate number of times. If you knock the wrong number of times, the door will lock, and no one will be able to get in or out, for ten minutes. The number changes every week, so it’s more difficult for students from other houses to get in. Not that that would happen in the first place,” Mrs. Gorman said with a pointed look at her three newest students.
“Oh, no, of course not,” said Hermione.
Mrs. Gorman nodded her head at Hermione, then turned to the door and knocked seven times. The door swung open and the group went inside. Mrs. Gorman then explained to them that they had to be in the common room by ten o’clock every night, boys dorms were through the door on the right side of the fireplace, girls dorms were through the door on the left side of the fireplace, and bathrooms were across the hall from the dorms.
“Well, I guess you guys are free to roam now. If you decide to go outside, make sure you don’t leave the school grounds. It you have any questions you can come find me in my office; there are maps on the walls around the school so you’ll be able to find it, or you can ask one of the other teachers. Have fun!” With that, the Head of Orion disappeared from the room, leaving the students to entertain themselves.
“So, what should we do now?” asked Harry.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m headed to th-”
“The library, we know.” Ron said. Hermione sniffed, turned on her heel, and left the room without another word to her two best friends.
“Come on Harry, let’s go look around, get used to this place.”
“Alright.”
Harry and Ron spent the next few hours wandering the halls of their home for the coming school year. They walked through all the floors and looked in all the classrooms. They even managed to make their way to the library to inform Hermione that they were on their way to the dining hall, as lunch would be served in ten minutes. Hermione waved in their direction, letting them know that she would be along in a few minutes.
As the two boys left the library and started down the main staircase, they met up with Susan and Justin.
“So, what do you guys think of this place so far?” Harry asked.
“I think it’s great,” Justin replied. “Did you see that they’ve even got electricity? It’s a magical form, of course, but it's great. Susan and I ran into some of the regular students here when we where in our dorm. One of them even said that they had a TV in there.”
“TV? Surely you don’t think you’ll have any spare time to be watching anything? I’ve just been to the library here, and there are so many things to study. I don’t think I’ll have time for spare time. The rest of you should check it out. I’m sure you’ll agree.” Hermione had caught up with the group just before they entered the dining hall.
“Hermione, why would we-” Ron stopped mid-sentence as he looked into the dining hall after the doors had open. “Well, this is certainly different.”
Instead of there being four long house tables, there were many smaller tables that were set in house sections. The color of the tablecloths on the tables determined what house the section belonged to. Each section had about eight tables.
“Ah, children, welcome!” Napaliebalous greeted the students as they walked in. “Please find a seat. As you can tell, each house has its own section, but you don’t actually have to sit there if you really don’t feel like it.”
Harry, Hermione, and Ron all headed for the Orion tables. The other students began to head for their own tables, but realizing that there would be two per table, decided to follow the trio to the Orion table.
Draco walked in a few moments later. He hadn't heard what Napaliebalous had said, but he was able to figure out the layout of the dining hall. Looking to his left, he noticed all the Hogwarts students were sitting at the Orion table. At first he was going to ignore them and sit at the Indus table, but he realized he didn't want to sit alone. So, going against his best interests, Draco made his way over to the Orion table and sat down next to Anthony Goldstein. The entire table stared at Draco for a minute before he said anything.
“What are you all staring at? You're all sitting together; you really didn't expect me to sit by myself, did you?” The rest of the table remained silent. Ron was about to answer Draco when the table was suddenly filled with food. Draco was instantly forgotten. The food was a little different than what was normally served at Hogwarts, but all of it was good, and there was definitely just as much, if not more.
The kids had a great time sampling all the new things they found. Ron seemed to like everything. Even Draco found that he was enjoying himself, though he tried to hide it by not talking to anyone.
Eventually everyone had eaten their fill and left the dining hall. Outside the hall, the students went their separate ways, with Hermione heading straight toward the library again. Harry and Ron decided they wanted to wander some more and explore the rest of the school. Since they hadn't yet visited the dungeons, they chose that as their next destination.
As soon as they stepped down into the dungeon, they could tell that it was very different from Hogwarts. The most obvious difference was that it was quite warm, and very well lit. It was almost like the second floor of the castle, but under the first floor instead of above. The boys also agreed that it just felt like a friendlier place.
"And you know that we're not going to have problems with the potions teacher here, we've already met her. She seems like a nice person," said Ron as they finally found the door that led to the potions classroom after a few hours of aimless wandering through the dungeons. "I think this may be our best school year yet."
"You know, I think you may be right. Most of the teachers here seem pretty nice. Especially the ones we've met already."
***
"Looks like we've made our way through the whole dungeon," Harry said when they stepped back out of the classroom. "What time is it?"
"Um, I think around four," answered Ron.
"OK. We've still got a while before we have to be back for the sorting. What should we do now?"
"We could go look around outside. We haven't done that yet."
"That sounds good."
After the two agreed on what to do next, they walked back upstairs. They started heading for the doors when they got to the Entrance Hall, but stopped a few feet short when someone exploded in from the other side. It turned out to be a sopping wet blonde girl, who looked to be about the same age as them. And she looked extraordinarily upset.
"Grace Sadler, get back here so I can beat you in the head with a blunt object!" she yelled.
Harry and Ron then heard, "Bring it on, biznitch!" from somewhere near the top of the staircase. They turned just in time to see another girl, again about the same age, but with red hair, run around the corner and out of sight. Harry and Ron turned back to look at the blonde girl again, but she was already running up the stairs, chasing the red-haired girl.
The boys looked at each other with confused expressions on their faces before the doors opened again. This time, two boys entered. They both had matching light brown hair and blue eyes. There was no way they couldn't be twins. They were quickly followed by another who had brown eyes and dark brown hair that was spiked and tipped neon orange.
After another moment of hysterical laughter, one of the twins stopped long enough to ask, "Did you see a red head and an angry, wet blonde come in here?"
Harry answered first. "Yeah, the angry, wet blonde chased the red head up the stairs."
"Perfect!" said the other twin. "Thanks."
The three new boys walked away from Harry and Ron and toward the stairs. As they were leaving, Harry and Ron heard their conversation.
"Grace really does know how to start a new school year the right way. She hasn't failed to make us laugh yet."
"Yeah, but it's too bad that Nicole is usually the one on the receiving end of her antics. It puts her in a bad mood. Hopefully she doesn't turn violent this time. Last year was scary."
All of the boys shivered in remembrance.
"Poor door, never had a chance. Oh well, let's go see if she's locked Grace in a closet yet."
The boys had finally made it to the top of the stairs and disappeared behind the same corner as the girls had.
"OK, that was interesting," commented Ron after a minute of silence. "An angry, wet blonde did just chase a red head in here, threatening to cause her serious harm, and three guys did just come through here basically cheering her on, right?"
"Yep, that's about what I got out of it," Harry responded.
"Right, I think it's safe to say that this school is a little bit strange."
"Probably."
"Let's go outside now."
"Good idea."
The boys then continued out of the school and onto the grounds, trying not to think too much about the strange scene they had just encountered. While they were outside they looked over just about everything, paying special attention to the area devoted to Quidditch. They also found the place where students were being dropped off and watched that for a while. When more and more students started showing up faster, they decided it would probably be a good time to go inside and get ready for dinner.
They were just starting to walk to the Dining Hall when they saw the rest of the Hogwarts students come out of it. Hermione and the others spotted Harry and Ron and motioned for them to go over to her. They did so.
"There you are!" said Hermione. "We have a meeting to be to in five minutes! Why weren't you in here sooner?"
"Uh, we didn't know we had to be at a meeting?" Ron answered uncertainly. He didn't want to say something wrong and make Hermione any more flustered than she already was.
"Anyway, we do need to be there in five minutes, so let's go." Hermione then led the Hogwarts group to the classroom that had been specified. She opened the door and let everyone in, then followed the last person.
"Oh, you're here. Good to see you again," said Mrs. Gorman. "I'm glad you all showed up on such short notice. Sorry about that, by the way. We just thought to have this meeting about an hour ago," she explained.
"That's perfectly alright," said Hermione.
"Great," said Mrs. Gorman happily. "Now, we're just waiting for one more person to show up." This time they could hear the tiniest bit of annoyance in her voice.
Suddenly, the door swung open and in walked the last member of their congregation. Harry and Ron immediately recognized her as the red-head being chased by the angry, wet blonde from earlier.
"Miss Sadler, so glad you could make it," greeted Mrs. Gorman.
"Sorry I'm late, I was locked in a closet for two hours."
"Ah, the work of Nicole Newman, no doubt. What happened this year, feathers?"
"Nope, something completely new. Want to hear about it?"
"Maybe later. Right now we have to get through this meeting so we can get to the
Dining Hall before the sorting begins.
"As all of our students have already been informed, Allteline School of Sorcerery will be host to exchange students from Hogwarts for the first half of the school year. This meeting was called to introduce our sixth year head students to the exchange students, since these are the people you will probably be spending the most time with. I expect my students to help introduce you to others, and make your stay here as comfortable as possible," she ended, turning her glance to the Hogwarts students.
Just then, everyone in the room heard a rather loud thud, then a grumbled, "Ow! Stupid door... monkey... handle..." come from the other side of the door. All of the Allteline students laughed when they heard the voice. Mrs. Gorman sighed.
"Miss Newman?"
The grumbling suddenly stopped. "Yes?" came from the other side of the door. This seemed to amuse the Allteline students even more.
"If you would like, you can come in rather than try to listen through the door."
"Okay."
The door opened, and in walked a blonde girl, whom Harry and Ron also recognized from the earlier scene in the Entrance Hall. She came fully into the room and walked over to stand next to Grace.
"I should have known I wouldn't be able to separate you two. I'm surprised you've been able to function properly without the other by your side for the last ten minutes.
"Anyway, we've only got a few more minutes before the sorting begins, so I'll just go around the room, point to people, and give their names. Starting with our guests; this is Hermione Granger, Susan Bones, Anthony Goldstien, Harry Potter, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Ron Weasley, Mandy Brocklehurst, and Draco Malfoy.
"And our students are Grace Sadler, Jimmie MacMary, and Nicole Newman, who isn't actually a head, but seems to show up wherever Grace does, from Orion, Matild Hendrick and John Hudson from Cassiopeia, Bridget Downey and Tony Kishida from Auriga, and Tiffany Ploetz and Wesley Regner from Indus.
"OK, now that you all know each other's names, I'm going to ask the Hogwarts students to find the members of the house they've been sorted into. Once you've done that, you can leave and go down to the Dining Hall, but please stay with your house members.
You'll need to sit in your own sections for tonight only."
The students all began moving around the room, looking for the other members of their houses. When most of them had stopped moving, Mrs. Gorman said, "Is everyone ready? OK, let's go." She then led all of them out of the room.
Grace was the one who started the conversation in their newly-formed little group. "Are you the real Harry Potter?" she asked.
"Yes," Harry answered, unsure where this conversation was leading.
"Does that mean that you’re the boy who didn’t die?" She said. Harry was taken back a little by her comment. He wasn’t sure if he had ever been called that before.
"Umm... do you mean the boy who lived?"
"Yeah, same thing." She said.
"Yes, that’s me."
"Fun! Can I touch your scar?"
"Um, OK, I guess."
They all stopped walking so Grace could reach over and touch Harry's forehead.
"Wow, the Harry Potter," she said, sounding awed. "OK, I'm bored now." She suddenly lost interest and turned around, again walking in the direction of the Dining Hall again.
Harry looked at the rest of the group, confused. Ron shrugged at him and they all started walking again.
After a minute of slightly awkward silence between the new aquaintances, Ron started the second conversation of the day.
"Hey, you're not wet anymore," he said while looking at Nicole. Nicole glared at him while Grace and Jimmie started laughing again.
"It's not funny!" Nicole snapped. Grace and Jimmie did stop laughing, but couldn't keep the grins of amusement off their faces.
"What exactly happened to cause you to be wet?" Harry asked, not sure that he wanted to continue on this topic for fear of meeting the same consequence as Grace apparently had.
Grace, on the other hand, seemed to think this topic was perfectly safe and answered immediately, "Invisible water balloons! She literally didn't see what hit her. It was great; you guys should have been there," she said, gesturing to Ron, Harry, and Hermione. Nicole once again glared at Grace, but kept her comments to herself.
The rest of the way to the Dinning Hall, Nicole was silent, while Grace and Jimmie made casual conversation with the new students. Nicole’s attitude changed almost immediately once they reached the Dinning Hall, though. Gone was her angry look, replaced with one of happiness. She waved vigorously at someone across the room and then ran ahead of the group. Grace, leading the group, followed her as they made their way to one of Orion's tables.
Nicole had already sat down, and was deep in conversation with two girls; one with light brown hair, the other with blonde hair. Harry guessed that the two were sisters because they both had the same piercing blue eyes. Nicole looked up from her conversation and motioned all of them to sit down. They did so, with Grace sitting next to Nicole. Grace was drawn into their conversation almost at once, and the trio just sat there and watched the four girls gossip about everything under the sun. Finally, after a few minutes (and Jimmie clearing his throat loudly a few times), the girls realized how rude they had been to their guests.
"Oh, I’m sorry," Nicole said, looking at the three. "Where are my manners? I haven’t introduced you guys to anyone at the table." She began the introductions with the blonde girl sitting next to her. "This is Delana Mayvick, and that is Shana Mayvick," she said pointed to the girl with light brown hair who was sitting next to Hermione. Shana and Delana both said their respective hellos, before Nicole continued with the people sitting on the other end of the table.
"The boy sitting next to Jimmie is Kevin Senser. Oh, just to let you all know, I totally dated him second year," Nicole said with a smile. Harry looked at the boy sitting next to Jimmie. He was the boy with neon orange tipped hair from the Entrance Hall incident.
"And what a mistake it was." He laughed. Nicole gave him a look.
"What! I was a good girlfriend!" She yelled playfully.
"Uh huh." Kevin said sarcastically. So great that you pointed out every guy in the castle to me that you thought had a great butt, and wanted me to think the same thing. I swear for a while you wanted me to be gay." The table erupted with laughter, and Nicole muttered something that nobody could quite hear, but that was probably for the best.
"Anyway, moving along," Nicole said, trying to get the attention away from herself. "Sitting next to Grace are Ryan and Brian Sulok." She said, pointing to the boys that Harry had decided had to be twins earlier.
"As of right now, the one sitting next to Grace is Brian, and the other is RyancI think." She thought about it for a moment, then continued on. "Really, they are almost impossible to tell apart, so don’t worry about calling them the right name. Most people are usually wrong anyway." Both boys nodded in agreement. Nicole suddenly remembered something. "Oh, and just to let you know, Ryan and Brian are not dating, and do not want to date Shana and Delana."
Harry and Ron looked at each other before they both looked to Hermione for the answer. Hermione just shrugged her shoulders and, after a brief pause, spoke up.
"Umm... I don’t mean to sound rude or anything, but why do we need to know this?" she asked.
Nicole seemed confused by Hermione’s question, but suddenly realized her mistake.
"Oh! I forgot to tell you! Shana and Delana are twins, like Ryan and Brian. Most people think that it would be great for two sets of twins to hook up. Sometime I forget that Shana and Delana aren’t identical like Ryan and Brian, so you have to tell people. Sorry for the misunderstanding."
Harry and Ron once again looked at each other. This was definitely going to be an interesting school year. Finally, Nicole got around to introducing the trio.
"And these people," she said, pointing to the three, "are exchange students from Hogwarts, and yes Shana, that does make them British. This is Hermione Granger, Ron Weasly, and Harry Potter."
After his name was said, Harry tensed up a little bit. He expected the table to fall silent and stare at him, like normal, but he was completely surprised when none of that happened. The table went on talking and gossiping, either not knowing, or not caring who he was. For once he was just one of them, just another student.
The table talked amongst itself for another few minutes, until Professor Napaliebalous walked through a side door at the front of the room. Following closely behind him was a bunch of students. All looked a little frightened, and Harry was quite certain that they must be the first years. They all had on the same black robes, which matched the one Harry, and the rest of the students were wearing, except theirs were all missing their house crest.
Napaliebalous walked to the middle of the room, and made a quick speech to start of the sorting ceremony.
"Good evening and welcome back to Allteline. For our first years, hello and welcome. It is wonderful to see all your smiling faces back this year. Before we start the sorting I want to point out that this year we are hosting some students from Hogwarts. I suggest that you all at least meet them during their time here. Well that’s all that I have to say for now, so lets begin the sorting." With that Miss Truehardt got up from the staff table and made her way to the front of the room.
Harry hadn’t noticed that the teachers were sitting at a table at the front of the room, but as Napaliebalous took his seat, he realized that there was not a seat empty. How he was able to miss a table with that amount of people, he did not know.
Miss Truehardt grabbed the box of candles off the floor and placed them on a stool in the front of the room. The ceremony was now ready to begin. She got a list out of her pocket and read off the first name, “Bailey, Dale.”
With that a small boy with short blond hair worked his way out of the group. He took his spot standing next to the box of candles.
Miss Truehardt handed him his unlit candle, then handed him one that was lit. He touched the candles together, and waited a few seconds for it to spark. When it finally did spark green sparks, it made him jump a little bit.
“Auriga,” Miss Truehardt called out. With that a green crest appeared on the boy’s all black robe, and the Auriga tables began to cheer. Dale made his way over to their tables just as Miss Tuehardt called out the next name, “Bracht, Cody.” He went through the sorting process and ended up in Orion. The house cheered with their new addition and he made his way to the table the house had set aside for all the new first years.
After the first few new students had been sorted, Harry started losing interest and got lost in his own thoughts. He was there for a little while, until he heard his name being called quietly.
“Harry?”
“Huh? Oh, Grace, what?”
“Are you excited about the party tonight?” she asked.
“Um, what party?”
Grace stared at him for a second before turning to the rest of the table. “Why didn’t anyone tell them about the party?” she demanded quietly, since the sorting was still going on. Everyone took turns looking at each other, then Kevin spoke.
“Well, wouldn’t that technically be your job? I mean, you are one of the head students who’s supposed to be responsible for introducing them to new people and all that crap.”
“Oh, right, forgot about that,” said Grace. She then turned back to Harry and started speaking to him as though that part of the conversation had not just taken place. “Well, every year on the first night back at school Orion has a huge party. It’s really supposed to be just a little party to help introduce the first years to the older students and give everyone a chance to socialize after being apart for the summer, but that’s never how it ends. Someone usually ends up doing something worthy of being repeated for at least the rest of the week. At one party, I think it was in my third year, one of the seventh years was showing off a spell she had learned over the summer and stuck half the room to the ceiling. I’d never seen Mrs. Gorman that mad before that, and haven’t seen it since. It took until three A.M. to get everyone down. We all got a lovely little chat the next morning about the appropriate application of sticking charms. But that was just a one-time thing,” she added quickly at Harry’s look of horror. “It’s not been that bad since.”
“Oh, ok, I guess that’s a good thing,” Harry replied. “There isn’t a chance of that happening this year, just because we’re here, is there?” Before Grace could answer, the hall broke out in rather loud cheers as a girl, whose name Harry thought was Katie Hall, was sorted into Cassiopeia after standing at the front of the hall for nearly eight full minutes. Her candle was half melted by the time a few blue sparks finally made themselves known.
Grace looked back at Harry and said, “I really don’t think that will happen, but there’s never a definite answer with these people. Most of them are still too afraid of the punishment we almost received after the last incident to try anything like that.”
“What punishment would that have been?” Harry asked curiously.
Grace gave a little shudder before answering, “Confinement to the castle other than Christmas and Easter. Apparently they thought that if we weren’t able to behave inside the school, then there was no way we could outside without adult supervision. I’m glad that never happened. I don’t know what I would have done if I wasn’t able to go shopping every weekend.”
“Well, it’s really not that bad,” said Hermione, who had been listening in to their conversation. “We seem to get along just fine with those conditions.” Grace looked at her in disbelief.
“Yeah, and I bet none of you has ever had to polish an entire trophy room without magic,” added Ron. Nicole looked away and gave a low whistle.
Kevin then decided he wanted to share some of his experiences in detention. “Last year I had to clean the potions room, without magic, after the second years learned how to make color-changing ink. I was multi-colored for two weeks.”
“I think I can outdo you all,” said Harry. “I once had to help Gilderoy Lockhart write his fan mail.”
Everyone at the table immediately agreed with Harry and grimaced at the mere thought of such a horrible punishment, except Shana. “You mean, author of Magical Me, Gilderoy Lockhart? You got to meet him?”
“Yeah,” Harry answered. “He was our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher in second year.”
“Really? That is so not fair. What was he like? I want to know all about him,” Shana said.
Harry and Ron looked at each other, while Hermione started describing their second year, in great detail, to Shana. That was soon drowned out, though, by the cheers of the Indus students as Christine Mahlie joined them.
“So, while they’re all off in their own little world over there,” Jimmie said, indicating Hermione and Shana, “why don’t you two tell us a little bit about yourselves. Let’s start withc what is your ambition in life?” He waited for a few seconds, thoroughly enjoying the looks of bewilderment on Harry’s and Ron’s faces before laughing and saying, “I’m only joking, you don’t have to answer that one. How many brothers and sisters do you guys have?”
Ron answered first. “Six - five older brothers and a younger sister. It gets really annoying sometimes, so don’t start saying anything about how cool it would be to have that many siblings.”
After Harry’s answer, no one had any problems finding anything to talk about during the rest of the sorting and through the feast. Sooner than they had imagined, dinner was over and everyone was heading to their common rooms for the night. When the Orion students got to the door that led to their common room, a seventh year head named Nina Kaiser knocked seven times and she and Scott Haggarty (the other seventh year head) entered, telling everyone to wait just a few minutes while they set up.
When three and a half minutes had passed, the doors opened again and everyone that was still standing out in the hall was invited in. As they crossed the threshold into the room, they saw that it had been decorated maroon, purple, and sky blue tye-dye. There were streamers in those colors, along with posters, tablecloths, and most of the furniture. There was also a disco ball hanging from the middle of the ceiling. On the tables there were refreshments, although they had just eaten. The refreshments were both magical and muggle. There were things like chocolate frogs and butterbeer, along with Coke and Cheetos.
“Dude, these are sweet decorations,” exclaimed Delana.
“I agree,” said Grace.
“Me, too” said Brian.
“Well, it’s nice to know that you’ve deemed it acceptable,” Nina said. “Now we can officially welcome everyone back to school.” With that, music started playing and people started dancing, eating (again), and socializing.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione were the slightest bit uncomfortable at first, but their new friends helped them get past that very quickly. By the end of the night they had met dozens of new people and realized that there were actually some normal people in Orion house. Although the party was still raging at around midnight, Harry, Ron, and Hermione decided to head for their dormitories. They made their way over to the food table where Grace, Nicole, and a few other students were socializing. Once they got closer, they realized that Nicole was actually the one socializing, while Grace seemed to be hoarding bottles of butterbeer and Coke, presumably for a later snack.
They all said good night to one another before the trio made their way to their dorms. Once Harry and Ron were inside they immediately changed into their pajamas and flopped down onto their beds without saying anything to each other. They were exhausted and fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow.
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